Shadow priest PvP guide
Intro This is a brief guide to PvP as a Shadow Priest. Hopefully people who are new to PvPing with a shadow priest will learn a thing or two. This guide assumes that the bulk of readers have at least 31 points in the shadow tree to have obtained Shadowform. (requires lvl 40+). Overview PVP First of all, is PvP the thing for you? If you choose to play on a PvP server be prepared to be killed by other people at times you don't want to be killed. Be prepared to be embarassed. Be prepared to spend a lot more time doing quests than you wanted to. Be prepared to be killed on your way to popular instances or in neutral towns. In short; be prepared to be very frustrated from time to time. Otherwise, PvP can be very fun. In battlegrounds, arena, and other pvp, it is a great test of skill and often a challenge. However, it requires a different mindset than PvE. Why Priest? Priests are the most versatile class in the game if specced Holy/Disc. They can also be a very potent offensive class in PvP, thanks to the Shadow Tree. Shadow priests can be usually distinguished by their purplish colour, thanks to Shadowform (31 point shadow talent). Why Shadow Priest? Priests are arguably one of the most powerful PvP characters. A priest specced Shadow (most talents assigned in the Shadow tree) can do incredible amounts of damage in a short period of time. They have one or more powerful DoT spells (up to 3), various healing spells, including an instant HoT spell, a shield, some limited crowd control (along with a very potent instant cast fear spell, buffs, optional wards, optional instant-cast self-healing spells, two or more powerful blasts, and optionally the most mana-efficient-per-damage channeling spell in the game. They can also add extra armor to themselves and later on increase their damage output while decreasing their damage taken. Pro's and Con's of being a shadow priest: Pros: *High damage, which is sustainable over moderately long periods of time *No lengthy cooldowns, highest being Silence which is 45 seconds (excluding racial abilities) *Moderate passive healing thanks to Vampiric Embrace, upgradeable by talents *Can Silence opponents at will *High melee reduction, up to around 40-50%, which is about as good as mail armor (using Shadowform and Inner Fire) *Possible to dispel many beneficial spells from enemies and harmful spells from yourself and team members *AoE fear on a short cooldown (26 secs with talents) *Can slow enemy's movement speed with Mind Flay *Can shield yourself with "Power Word: Shield", absorbing large amounts of damage and preventing casting interruptions Cons: *Whilst in Shadowform (vast majority of the time), it is not possible to cast any holy spells, such as heals. *Shifting into Shadowform is a mana-thirsty spell. *Priests are often targeted early in PvP situations. *Shadow Priests are deprived of any form of damaging AOE which hampers their use as a mage replacement. *Shadow Priests will find buffing Power Word: Fortitude and Prayer of Fortitude very costly in terms of mana, making it difficult to rebuff after being purged. Slang Some terms you may hear as a priest/shadowpriest. Talents Get to Shadowform ASAP. Refer to the pages on priest talent builds for more detailed information. Spells Realize that the following figures for damage are at level 60, unbuffed, not in shadowform, without the Darkness and Shadow Weaving talents and without +damage gear. Expect to see figures 25-50% higher than these in practice, it is not unreasonable to see mindblast crits for 1,300+ with sufficient damage gear. Mind Blast: This will be one of your most frequently used spells, has a cast time of 1.5 secs (quite fast), and high damage (503-531) damage at lvl 58-60. On 8 sec cooldown (without talents) or 5.5 sec (with talents). Mind Flay: Your bread and butter attack, a highly mana-efficient channeled spell that does a high amount of damage over 3 seconds. Also slows the target's speed to 50%. Has NO cooldown, and can be chaincasted indefinitely. Shadow Word: Pain : A very mana-efficient spell that does high amounts of damage over 18 secs (improved to 24 secs with talents, which results in a 33% increase in damage). No cooldown, instant cast. Considered the best instant DoT in the game. Vampiric Embrace: A 21 point Shadow Talent, also a prerequisite of Shadowform. This heals you (and nearby group members) for 15% (25% with Improved Vampiric Embrace) of Shadow damage you cause, absolutely great in both PvP and PvE as you can't cast other healing spells in Shadowform. Silence: Another 21 point Shadow Talent (requires two points in Improved Psychic Scream), makes the opponent unable to cast any spells for 5 seconds. 45 sec cooldown. A must in PvP, to interrupt healers and to stop Mages from sheeping, Warlocks from fearing, etc. Inner Focus: A 11 point Discipline talent that many Shadow Priests have, it gives your next spell +25% chance to crit and reduces the mana cost to 0. Has a two minute cooldown. Power Word: Shield: An instant-cast spell that, according to the toolip, "Draws on the soul of the party member to shield them, absorbing 942 damage. Lasts 30 sec. While the shield holds, spellcasting will not be interrupted by damage. Once shielded, the target cannot be shielded again for 15 sec". Note that the damage absorbed is with rank 10, which is obtainable at level 60. Psychic Scream: "The caster lets out a psychic scream, causing 5 enemies within 8 yards to flee for 8 sec. Damage caused may interrupt the effect". Instant cast on a 30 second cooldown, reducible to 26 seconds with the Improved Psychic Scream talent. Mind Control: "Controls a humanoid mind up to level X, but slows its attack speed by 20%. Lasts up to 1 min." Note that "X" is usually 'your own level + 2'. -I.e.- a lvl 40 should be able to mindcontrol a lvl 42. Fairly useless in PvP, but can be useful and fun. For example throwing people into the lava at BRM or off the cliff in AB, or Mind Control one mob to fight with another, Mind Control a player of the opposite faction to talk with him, Mind Control a mob to get his buff, etc. Mind Vision: "Allows the caster to see through the target's eyes for 1 min. Will not work if the target is in another instance or on another continent." Rank 1 of this spell has a 100-yard range and a line-of-sight requirement. Rank 2 has neither of these restrictions; it is possible to cast this spell on targets further and further away from yourself and see quite a tremendously long way away, as long as you can find something to cast it on. Can be cast on any mob, hostile, friendly, neutral, critter. It can be resisted. Shadow Protection:'Increases the target's resistance to Shadow spells by 60 for 10 min. Useful when fighting Warlocks and other shadow priests. 'Power Word: Fortitude: A great stamina buff (70 stamina with talents at level 60!). Needless to say, keep this on at all times. Shadowform: The 31 point Shadow tree talent which basically defines the Shadow Priest. Grants +15% to shadow spell damage, reduces physical damage taken by 15%, but locks out all Holy spells. It is worth noting that only spells that appear on the "Holy" tab of your spellbook will be locked out; Discipline spells such as PW: fort, inner fire, and PW: Shield will still be usable. Racial Abilities Devouring Plague (Undead only): "Afflicts the target with a disease that causes 904 Shadow damage over 24 sec. Damage caused by the Devouring Plague heals the caster." 3 minutes cooldown. Great of course, it's an extra DoT which ALSO does a great HoT! The big disadvantage is that it costs a huge 985 mana. It is wise to use it in combination with Inner Focus to save the 1k mana (they're both on nearly equal cooldowns). Beware casting this on other priests, since they can simply remove it with Cure Disease. Shadowguard (Troll only): Selfbuff that lasts 10 min: when a spell/ranged/melee attack strikes you, the attacker gets hit for 116 Shadow damage. 3 charges. Only damages every few seconds. This may not seem much, but it is actually great as it works with the Vampiric Embrace, Blackout and Shadow Weaving talents. So (with 3 charges) you have a 30% chance in total to stun your opponent for 3 seconds, get +9% Shadow damage (3 Shadow Weaving procs) deal 348 damage and heal yourself (with the Improved Vampiric Embrace talent) for 116. It's always nice to see a Rogue/Warrior stunning you but ending up being stunned for longer than you are! Touch of Weakness (Undead and Blood Elf only): Selfbuff that lasts 10 min: when a spell/ranged/melee-hit hits you, the attacker gets hit for 64 Shadow damage and his damage dealt gets reduced by 20 for 2 min. 1 charge. Like Shadowguard, this is very useful because it procs VE/Blackout/Shadow Weaving. Hex of Weakness (Troll only): Reduces the damage the target deals by 20 and reduces healing effects by 20%. Lasts 2 min. This may not seem good as it procs the global cooldown and it is only 20 damage (doesn't proc VE/Blackout/Shadow Weaving either as it is no selfbuff), but the -20% healing effects can be very useful in a fight against healers. Feedback (Human only): Selfbuff that lasts 15 seconds: When a spell hits you, the caster will lose 105 mana and 105 hp. Extremely useless as it costs 580 mana to drain 105 mana from the enemy! Plus, it lasts only 15 seconds. Never use it. Starshards (Night Elf only): Channeled spell that deals 936 Arcane damage over 6 sec. Fairly useless as the long channeling gets interrupted often in PvP, and because it is Arcane damage, it doesn't work with VE/Blackout/Shadow Weaving/Darkness/Shadowform/+Shadow damage gear. Fear Ward (Dwarf and Draenei only): Absorbs one Fear effect on the caster. Instant cast, 10 minute duration, 30 second cooldown. Difficult to use properly. Ideally it should be cast just before the Fear effect is used on you, to reduce the risk that it will simply be dispelled or Devoured, but this isn't always easy to predict. Consume Magic (Blood Elf only): Dispels a random magical Priest buff from the caster, returning X mana. Situationally useful, perhaps, but the buff dispelled is random; it might eat Inner Fire, which is cheap, or PW: Fort, which will always cost more to re-cast than this spell will return to you. In an emergency, that little bit of extra mana might save your life, though. The above is a short list of many spells which priests can learn, to see a full list with information, see Thottbot. Must Haves Items *PvP trinket (Insignia of the Horde/Alliance). Use: Dispels all Fear, Polymorph and Stun effects. 5 min cooldown. This can be purchased for 4125 honor points. Macros *Dispel Magic Macro: /cast target=player Dispel Magic This allows you to cast Dispel Magic on yourself without deselecting your current target. AddOns *Clique: Allows you to bind specific spells to specific mouse click combinations (such as Shift-Right click), greatly easing the difficulty of keeping your party healed or buffed. Does not even require you to target the party member first. This is definitely worth including as sometimes shifting out of shadowform to heal a dying party member is more useful to the group than just another DPSer. Bindings *Power Word: Shield: I have found it to be very useful to bind a Power Word: Shield macro that automatically targets and casts it on yourself to the " ~ " key, (above the tab key), as it allows me to easily cast it without having to look away from what im doing. Such a macro would look like this: /cast target=player Power Word: Shield Skills *First Aid: Saves you having to shift in and out of shadowform to heal, saves mana and time. It will save your life many times in pvp. Be certain the enemy isn't attacking you, as any damage will cancel the effect. Gear For a shadow priest, look at mostly +Stamina, +X to shadow/spell damage, with intellect as a distant third. If you have taken Spirit Tap as a talent, +Spirit gear could also be included, but spirit will only help you if you're not casting spells (i.e., not in PvP) or have already killed your opponent. PvP Tactics As a Priest (as well as any class), to be a good player in PvP, you must be able to change your strategy depending on what your enemy is doing, as well as a whole bunch of other variables, such as terrain (you can't run up a cliff), mobs around where your fighting and their build/gear. So it is impossible to write a guide which encompasses all the variables. However, below is a list of possible strategies you can use against different classes: Note that against any class it is advisable during the start of a fight to cast dispel 2-3 times on an opponent, you can easily wipe off a lot of buffs/health with a minimum of mana. Such spells include Arcane Intellect, Power Word: Fortitude, Mark of the Wild, potion effects, Blessings, Shadow Protection and many more. By casting it 2-3 times it is possible to wipe off a whole bunch of bonuses. You should also keep yourself dispelled all the time, but be warned: Skilled players will use rank 1 spells, making you waste a lot of mana. Melee classes may cause a problem by running around you, thus making it hard to hit them with Mind Blast. In that case, simply use Mind Flay, as it has its line of sight check at the beginning of the spell, resulting in constant damage. If you manage to fear them, keep them from you as long as possible using Mind Flay. This may be worth a lot more than getting some extra damage with Mind Blast at the cost of damage received. See also: Priest: How to Kill a... Mages Mages are one class that possesses the necessary amount of damage to simply blow down a shadow priest. This is countered by keeping them silenced and/or feared at all times. Once you start that up, simply dps as you would any other class. Be aware that mages can obtain a PvP trinket that can dispell one fear effect with a five minute CD. The most dangerous thing is to let them Polymorph or Counterspell. Polymorph will give them the first shot, making it pretty difficult to survive (unless you have your PvP trinket). Counterspell can completely lock out your Shadow school for 10 seconds if they cast it while you're casting, which would be absolutely devastating. For this reason, unless the mage has already counterspelled, try to cast instant, or near-instant spells, to reduce the likelihood of being interrupted. If you are counterspelled while using a shadow spell, you still have the option of Mana-burning (Discipline spell), wanding, or dispelling any buffs the they have. Your best option, however, is probably to be prepared to leave Shadowform to heal. It is advisable to deke a Mind Blast by casting for only a split second and cancelling it. Many will waste their counterspell without any impact. This should give you the edge. Druids The druid probably is the most versatile and complex class. There are so many different specs, that it's hard to give a basic guide on druids. Generally, burn their mana whenever possible. Well-played druids will try to outheal you. The shadow priest's lack of real burst damage gives them an advantage. Try to dispel them whenever possible. They have very potent HoTs and Innervate. Preventing those strongly limits their survivability. Druids in cat form shouldn't be a problem. If they stealth, shield immediately. Then simply fear, apply Shadow Word: Pain and Vampiric Embrace. Then nuke with Mind Blast and Mind Flay. Chances are they will now shift out to heal due to low health. If they cast rejuvenation (green swirls will appear around them), dispel it. If they start to cast a healing wave, cast silence and finish them off. If you can get close enough, Psychic Scream will also interrupt casting. Druids in bear form are much harder, as they can interrupt your spellcasting multiple times (especially Tauren). These normally try keeping you from interrupting them. In that case, you need to be either mana-efficient or cautious and precise with your cooldown spells (Psychic Scream, Silence, Mind Blast). Druids in caster or moonkin form shouldn't be a problem. SW:P and Mana Burn just work very fine for them, but simple nuking normally can be used as well. Well-played restoration druids can be pretty difficult, as they are very efficient. While technically possible, Nature's Swiftness is almost impossible to dispel, granting them one free heal. Warriors Can be quite easy or quite hard. Depends on their build, their gear, and if they can use their 30 min cooldown (shared with several other spells) to stop you from fearing. This can only be done if they are in berserker mode, where they can use Recklessness (30 minute CD, increases their crit chance on hits by 100%, causes them to receive 20% more damage, and lasts for 15 secs) and Berserker Rage (30 sec CD, , immune to fear effects, lasts for 10 secs). Often the warrior will use Berserker Rage instead of Recklessness, since it's on a much shorter timer. The trick here is to realize that most warriors will activate these abilities just after they charge, so it is advisable to hold out on using fear until at least 10 secs after that. To survive during this period, cast renew (only shield if you want to cast spells with casting times, like Mind Blast or Mind Flay), and put VE, and all of your DoTs on them. If you manage to get a fear off, your chances of winning increase substantially. A Warrior is most likely to use Berserker Rage as often as possible during the fight to render your Psychic Scream useless. Do not waste the cool down, just try healing (a situation where Healing Focus is very useful) while it's on and keep your DoTs on him. The ability to keep a mental count-down of spell durations is helpful with Berserker Rage. As soon as you think it's gone, Psychic Scream and use Mind Blast, Mind Flay, etc. Pay attention to which stance the warrior is in, Battle Stance is common for an initial Charge, but when they switch to Berserker Stance (noticeable by the large Dwarf head) he will then have access to Berserker Rage. Sometimes you can get off a fear quickly, between the initial warrior charge and their switching stances. An experienced warrior will try to strafe around your in order to avoid your spells. Avoid relying on Smite/Mind Blast unless they are at a distance. Throw a Vampiric Embrace on them, followed by a SW:P (and Vampiric Touch then Mind Flay if you're shadow spec'ed). Keep your shield up and a win is almost guaranteed. Keeping Power Word: Shield on you also prevents the warrior from gaining the rage he needs to hurt you. Faking heals: Commonly, to heal oneself during a warrior fight, a Priest would attempt to use Flash Heal. Warriors in Berserker Stance have a skill called "Pummel" which interrupts this spell and locks out heals for 4 seconds. If you think the warrior is going to use it, a good method to attempt to bypass this effect would be to begin casting Flash Heal, hit Escape to cancel the Flash Heal quickly, wait for the Pummel sound, and then cast it on you. "Faking" heals is common strategy in dueling. Keep in mind that faking twice costs 3 seconds in global cooldown, whereas the Pummel itself is a 4 second silence with a 10 second cooldown, so it is worth it to take the pummel rather than to fake and fail 3 times. You should be able to beat any equal-leveled Warrior unless your opponent is noticeably better geared, or uses his 30 minute cooldown. Paladins In general, a Paladin fight will probably favor the Paladin the longer it goes on, as the paladin can keep up sustained DPs without mana, while the Priest's mana pool will eventually become empty. However, a Paladin without mana does do considerably less damage. The most effective of fighting a paladin is using Mana Burn. Use this often, and try to keep the Paladin at almost zero mana. At the beginning, cast SW:P rank 1 to see whether the enemy cleanses or not. Generally, cleansing will be very time and mana consuming for the Paladin, as you can constantly apply new Shadow Weavings. If the Paladin doesn't cleanse, use your highest rank of SW:P. Then constantly Mana Burn them while regularly casting a Mind Flay to keep Shadow Weavings up. You should also dispel the paladin, as they rely on their seals. Try not to use too much of your mana early on, as your enemy can be very long-lasting using their 'bubble' (Divine Shield, Lay on Hands and mana-efficient heals. Silence them if you see them go to heal, and if they 'Bubble', bandage up and wait for the bubble to disappear. It might also be useful to get outside of their immediate range to bandage, as they can interrupt you with Consectration. The best bet for a Shadow Priest is to try to bring the can bring the Paladin down with some good burst damage. Keep in mind the paladin can refill health with Lay on Hands once every hour (or less with talents/equipment sets), which empties their mana pool, and use Divine Shield to scrap all of your debuffs and DoTs, which makes them invulnerable to attacks for 12 secs. Usually you have to force a Paladin to use these two abilities before you can kill him, so do that. Cast Vampiric Embrace, DoTs (Devouring Plague can be cleansed by Paladins, so use judiciously) and touch/hex of weakness on them. When they stun you, and they will, expect to eat some damage. If you can't make this up with VE, it's a good idea to scratch Shadowform to heal. Unfortunately, against a Paladin, fights turn into endurance battles, and a bunch of mana to re-enter Shadowform isn't always a good idea, but it's up to you. Remember to fear, during which you should first DoT, then Mind Flay or Holy Fire, or even a wand (something mana efficient). When the Paladin hits low health, they'll use one of their emergency spells, in which case it's like the fight starts again. Repeat from top. Remember to jump around like crazy in melee range, as a Paladin is a melee class. Always remember to dispel EVERY judgement he does on you. Paladins vs. Priests is all about endurance. Don't use all your mana at once, and don't lose you're calm. Hunters These guys can be quite difficult, due to Viper Sting, which is a poison effect that drains your mana. A cure poison potion is invaluable if you have it. Try to avoid Hunter's traps by learning what the animation looks like when they set them, and avoid running straight towards them if you think they've set one, as this is where it will by 90% of the time. Basically, the key to victory is to Dps as fast as possible, as their Viper Sting will drain considerable amounts of your mana pool, which normally is relatively low for a shadow priest to begin with. The key to winning is to stay close to the hunter (5-8 yards), preventing him to easily take you down from range (needs 8+ yards, hits harder) or melee (5- yards, not as dangerous) . Ignore their pet, as it has too much health to defeat it and the Hunter, and will allow the Hunter way to much time to take you down. Load up the hunter with VE, SW:P and any other DoTs that you have. Do not stop to cast spells with casting times yet, as the combined interrupt of the pet's melee and the hunter's attacks make this nearly impossible. Instead, as you cast the above spells, make your way towards the Hunter. When you are within fearing range, fear both the Hunter and his pet. If you successfully get one fear off, the fight is almost your for sure. Just Dps him quickly before Viper sting drains to much mana. Don't bother Mana Burning too much (maybe if you have the talents) and don't forget to dispell Hunter's Mark, Concussive Shot (lasts for 4 sec), and any traps that you get caught in. It's well worth your time. Hunter's are especially hard to beat without Shadowform, and without getting at least one long-lasting fear off. Shaman The technique is similar to that of a Paladin (i.e., Mana Burn), except they can interrupt your casting with Earth Shock. When they do, run away from them in the hope you will get out of range of their next melee swing. The main weakness of Shamans is their low mana pool, so exploit this. Shaman have 2 main sources of DPS besides totems and long-cast lightning, Shocks and melee auto-attack, which can proc Windfury. A smart Shaman will not spam shocks, so their damage is somewhat lowered, but since all their utility is in their shocks, this means that casting might not be the easiest thing. Purge is the third offensive ability they have, and it is generally used judiciously. A shaman will purge the PW:S almost immediately upon it being cast. Purge is fairly expensive (140 mana), and gets resisted a lot (over 50% of the time). This means that sometimes, the shaman is forced to spend 500 mana, to remove a rank 1 Shield or Hex/Touch of Weakness. Use this to your advantage. If you see a Shaman drop a Grounding Totem, they are usually preparing to heal themselves. Wand once to take out the totem (only 5 health) and then silence at will. Proximity permitting, the totem might be unable to absorb Psychic Scream, making it the better option, as Shaman melee shouldn't be underestimated. If possible, save your fear for the end of the fight when the Shaman tries to heal. Fear should be negated by their Tremor Totem, but fortunately, the latter rarely works. It's based on a system of pulses, which go every 3-5 seconds. However, by the time it works, the Shaman is often running like crazy out of range of the totem, while your SW:Pain and mana burn deplete both life and mana. Tremor totems are cheap, and the shaman will drop them a lot against you, which is a decent trade-off, since less other totems are being dropped. Totems also have a short range, so running away from them is usually a good idea, especially if you've mana-burned the Shaman into melee. When/if they plant totems, it's way easier to get out of range then wasting time attacking them. This is not applicable in a duel due to the range limit but should be utilized in every other situation. Shadow priests have silence, which is a great tool against any shaman. Silencing a heal, and applying a couple more mana burns, and then casting a fear, and you should be able to down a Shaman very quickly. Rogues Rogues can be quite tough at times. Rarely will you get the first hit in, so when you see them stealth, wait 5 secs and shield yourself. They will usually gouge/cheapshot you, and start DPSing. while this is happening spam the fear button, as you really need to keep rogues at a distance. AS soon as you have got one of hit Pain, to stop them from vanishing. Then Vamperic embrace, mindblast, mindflay, mindflay, shield, mindflay (fear when cooled down). Warlocks I hate warlocks. They are (for me) easily the hardest class to beat. It is near impossible to beat a warlock who has Felhunter out (interrupts spells) and constantly fears you. Just be thankful that you're Shadow, not Holy. Basically Silence right away, SW:P, VE, Mind Blast, Shield, Mind Flay, Dispel, with Fear as soon as you can get both the pet and the 'lock. If they have Felhunter out chances are it'll interrupt you sometime, when this happens run THROUGH the warlock to cancel Shadowbolt or Immolate if its casting at the time. Trick is to constantly keep dispelling yourself, to remove 2 of its 3 DOTS (Immolate and Corruption), which will do a lot of damage. Felhunter: Try to use Psychic Scream on them both early and have your Insignia of the Alliance/Horde ready, along with WotF for Undead. 5 points in Unbreakable Will will help you to go through the Fear and Spell Lock. Make sure you Power Word: Shield AFTER the Felhunter devours your buffs so it will last long enough for you to absorb some damage. It's often a good idea to give yourself all available buffs (even Feedback) so that the Felhunter Devours some of the more useless ones (if you're lucky). Before the real damage, the Warlock will probably DoT and Fear you. If you're a Dwarf or a Human, use Fear Ward or Feedback right after the first Devour Magic, and then Dispel what you can Felguard: There is no easy way of doing this. Equally geared shadow priests and warlocks have 50% chance of defeating each other according to skill, luck, and gear. The Felguard will do extremely heavy damage if ignored so try to fear it asap. Having shield and Inner Fire up is essential for you will receive heavy damage. Cast it early and be ready to cast it again after a good timed Silence. Succubus: The commonly used tactic would be to Seduce you and then Soul Fire. Since Seduce (which can be removed by WotF, although it might be a good idea to save it for a Fear) is a short range spell, try to avoid it and open the duel yourself with a DD spell, a DoT, and VE. If you're lucky enough to Blackout, use it to get close and use Psychic Scream on the Warlock. Save Silence for after the Fear because that's usually when Death Coil will be the spell of choice and that's when it gets ugly. Sometimes a Shadow priest will put a singe SW:P on the Succubus (with lots of +damage gear) in order to finish it off. Imp: Not usually out, but it might be worthwhile to kill the imp immediately, since is has very low health, and can do significant damage/interruption. Be aware of the new Affliction spell Unstable Affliction when using Dispel on yourself or others. The damage you take after dispelling scales with the Warlock's +damage equipment, and is also capable of a critical strike. This is usually you're hardest fight. Priests Keep dispelling yourself for pain (mouse over the debuff and check to make sure its not a rank 1 pain (will have like 4 damage per 3 secs), in which case don't bother as its a huge waste of mana. Keep dispelling the enemy priest. Once again, Mana Burn will give you the edge. Simply drain his mana, while keeping him from casting using your fear and silence. Conclusion As a finishing note, I strongly advise all shadow priests to watch a few rank 13/14 shadow priests (or post 2.0.1 equivalents) in action to see how they adapt to the different situations and their tactics. A lot can be learned from watching people more skilled than yourself. Happy FaceMelting Links * Shadowpriest.com: A forum dedicated to Shadowpriests *Shadow Priest Gear Category:GuidesCategory:Priests